This is an entry from our 2008 Holiday Gift Guide. Check it out for suggestions on what to buy your loved, liked, and hated ones this holiday season!

Yeah, we know, the Time Capsule is a router and backup device. Not that exciting, right? Well, not all gifts are meant to spur excitement - this one is practical and functional. If you know someone who owns a Mac, and doesn’t take advantage of Time Machine, then they need a Time Capsule - especially if they use a MacBook or MacBook Pro. The Time Machine sports either a 500GB or 1TB hard drive, and is a combination wired/wireless network attached storage device. Even better, it doubles as an 802.11n/g router as well. The 500GB Time Capsule sells for $299, while the 1TB version will run you $499.

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Always on the lookout for references to the technology we love hitting the pop culture, we had to share these clips from The Simpsons. In the clip above, the family visits the new mApple store that has opened in the Springfield Mall, and we’re sure you can imagine the things they joked about in that one. We’ve got references to MyPods, MyPhones, the Brainiac Bar, and even the almighty Steve Mobs. Good for a chuckle. Below, we’ve embedded a second clip, where Lisa visits the Mapple world headquarters, to meet with Steve Mobs, which just so happens to be underwater.

Big Canvas Inc. has debuted their latest Apple iPhone application that they have dubbed OilCanvas. Users can make their own artwork and save it on their library. You choose a base picture, select a brush and paint with your finger to create your own masterpiece. You can also share with friends in your PhotoShare network. OilCanvas is free to the first 50,000 downloaders ($1.99 after that) at the App Store. Big Canvas previously released PhotoShare, SmallCanvas and PhotoArtist.

Okay, we’re mobile warriors here at Gear Live, and the battery life is the only negative for me when it comes to my iPhone 3G. The Mophie Juice Pack 3G aims to fix that problem, and so we took it to task. Now, mind you, not everyone uses up their battery as quick as I do - I have two email accounts that are on push data, and I also push calendars and contacts as well. That’s a lot of constant connectivity going on. If I’m not careful, my iPhone 3G battery will be dead within 9 hours on a typical day.

This is an entry from our 2008 Holiday Gift Guide. Check it out for suggestions on what to buy your loved, liked, and hated ones this holiday season!

Yeah, we know that the iPhone is probably a little rich to purchase for someone during the holidays, plus there’s the whole activtion conundrum. Instead, focus on the people who already own the iPhone 3G, and get them an accessory that we absolutely love. The Mophie Juice Pack for iPhone 3G gives the iPhone more than double the battery life that it has on its own. That means you get up to 250 hours standby time, 6 hours talk time (or 12 hours if on EDGE), 28 hours audio playback, and 8 hours video playback. The cost on this one is $99.95, and is totally worth it for iPhone road warriors.

Yahoo and GoodShop have teamed to create GoodSearch, which allows you to donate money to over 70,000 nonprofits when you shop online. About 800 retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Apple are participating. Simply purchase through Goodshop and up to 37% of the purchase price goes to the user’s favorite cause. Prices are the same as on the partner’s site and there are often coupons and discounts added. Use the Goodsearch engine alone and about a penny goes to the cause as well.

So, we knew that iPhone 2.2 would bring OTA podcast downloads in the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, so we had to try and see if it would allow us to download anything else over the air as well. Unfortunately, music is still a no-go. You can’t access the Featured or Top Tens sections in iTunes on the iPhone, unless you have a Wi-Fi connection. Meanwhile, the Podcasts section supports both audio and video podcasts, which puts a smile on our faces.

Well, I guess that November 21 rumor was true, because the iPhone 2.2 firmware update is now available. This one is pretty hefty in the feature department too, so color us excited. You’ve got the a few nice enhancements to Maps, including Google Street View, public transit directions, walking directions, and the ability to share your GPS location with others via email. Speaking of email, the Mail client enjoys some stability improvements in this release as well, along with better handling of wide HTML email. Safari picks up performance improvements, we get the promise of fewer set-up failures and call drops, and better sound quality for Visual Voicemail.

If you’re a podcast lover (and seriously, we know that you love ourshows,) you’ll be ecstatic to hear that, finally, podcasts are available for download in the iTunes application. Seriously, this thing is packed. Connect your iPhone up to your computer and grab the 246MB update now.

Online game site Zynga is offering their Texas Hold’Em Poker for iPhones. Play with others on Hi5 Live, Facebook, MySpace or Bebo. Play casual games or try getting into a tournament with the Live Poker game that runs on Wifi and the 3G Network. Download the basic version for free from the iTunes Store or pay $9.99 and get more chips. Zynga claims that 1.4 million gamers are already playing (undoubtedly when they should be working or studying.)

Microsoft is planning a web-based version of their Office suite, which will include full versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. As long as you have a Firefox, IE or Safari browser, you can access it from anywhere. The company has not given an official public release date, but you can probably expect it in late 2009. This should give iPhone and other handheld addicts another source of happiness since they have even more reason now to use them more than their computers.